TV review: Ireland's Wild Islands is a rare gem

Eoin Warner has walked the walk — and he has a voice that puts him up there as Ireland's answer to David Attenborough

Eoin Warner, host of Ireland's Wild Islands, aboard a Galway Hooker

Wildlife shows are a comfort blanket for Irish people my age. Back in the one-channel days, if you didn’t live near enough to the east coast, you might find yourself watching The Riordans with your parents, or even Mart and Market, if they forgot to put you to bed. Along with knowing the price of hoggets at Bandon Mart, you knew there must be a better world out there.

You’d get a whiff of this watching shows like Amuigh Faoin Spéir presented by Éamon de Buitléir — beautifully crafted half-hours, with a voice-over that seemed to spring from the landscape.

So I got a familiar whiff watching Ireland’s Wild Islands (RTÉ One, 18:30 Sunday and RTÉ Player), a three-parter presented by Eoin Warner. He spent three years sailing a Galway hooker west from Rathlin island in northern Ireland, and then down the west coast, ending on the islands off his native West Cork.

This show works because Warner isn’t some academic with a new pair of hiking boots. You feel that he has walked the walk, and now he sails the seas with a pleasant curiosity and a voice that puts him up there as Ireland’s answer to David Attenborough.

A lot of the Attenborough set-pieces are here. The guillemot chicks learning to fly by tumbling off sea-stacks on Rathlin are bitter-sweet — some make it, while others end up as lunch for the gulls.

Basking sharks off Ireland's western coast

Warner draws on his childhood in West Cork, the pleasure to be had when you make a brief connection with an Irish Hare. From here he dips into Irish mythology, and witches disguised as hares so they could sneak up on cows and steal their milk.

There is history as well, with the news that Ireland was first settled 8,000 years ago by people who migrated from Scotland to Rathlin. The story is carefully put together, seamlessly flowing from personal thoughts to wildlife, mythology, and history.

There is traditional Irish music too, as you’d expect. I’d love it if someone made a show about Ireland with a jazz backing track, just to give us a break from the tin whistle. But that’s just nit-picking.

We sail south to Achill Island and watch a wild Irish stoat bringing poor mice back to her hungry kids. It’s oddly soothing.

And then Warner relays the story of 9,000 basking sharks killed here by fishermen down the years, in a bay that starred in The Banshees of Inisherin. The sharks still come here every year — happier now that we’ve stopped hunting them.

Ireland’s Wild Islands has it all. A message, a vibe, it’s beautifully crafted and presented by someone that feels like a spirit guide, in a good way.

The final shot of the first episode has Warner on the beach in Achill that served as the backdrop for a seminal scene in The Banshees of Inisherin. I’d show this show to visitors, rather than any over-hyped movie.

Ireland’s Wild Islands is a rare gem. I must watch it with my kids.